I Have a Post Apocalyptic Online Friend C17.2

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Chapter 17. Part 2

“Are you okay?” she asked, rushing over to help him up.

Lu Yuan shook his head. His gaze fell on the zombie corpse inside the bus, and he raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You killed it? Not bad.”

Zhou An’an hid her still-trembling right hand and scoffed, “Piece of cake.”

Lu Yuan couldn’t help but smile. “Let’s go. Time to get off and scavenge for supplies.”

Zhou An’an double-checked the doors and windows, ensuring the zombies couldn’t get in, before finally stepping into the factory.

The first thing she saw was the packaging area, piled high with foam insulated boxes. Inside, neatly stacked, were boxed meals produced before Doomsday.

She opened one to take a look. A sour, rotten smell assaulted her, nearly making her pass out.

What a waste of so much food, she thought. And the dishes were even shredded pork with garlic sauce and fried meatballs… Sigh…

Zhou An’an regretfully closed the box and continued forward with Lu Yuan.

The factory wasn’t large, and its layout was simple.

They passed the curing area and the washing area before finally reaching the warehouse door.

Several dried, blackened bloody handprints stained the door—clear evidence that someone had tried to hide here when the mutations first began, but had ultimately failed.

How many people are still alive in the world now?

Zhou An’an couldn’t help but glance at Lu Yuan, feeling incredibly grateful to have met him.

Lu Yuan had already pushed the door open and stepped inside. She quickly followed.

There were no windows, and the interior was dark.

Zhou An’an turned on her phone’s flashlight. When the scene inside came into view, she felt as if she’d stumbled into Ali Baba’s treasure cave.

Sacks of rice, sacks of flour, crates of potatoes and radishes, cured meats and salted eggs…

Although a lot of vegetables like lettuce and tomatoes had spoiled, and the meat in the powerless freezers had rotted and become infested with maggots, none of it dampened her excitement in the slightest.

Lu Yuan had been right: the food produced before Doomsday was enough to sustain survivors for a very, very long time. The real challenge was who had the skill to claim it.

“Should we start moving it now?” Zhou An’an asked.

Lu Yuan nodded, instructing her, “Take as much high-sugar, high-fat food as you can… Actually, just grab whatever tastes good.”

This wasn’t a hundred years after Doomsday. He wasn’t going to deny himself good food anymore.

Zhou An’an looked utterly baffled.

Grab whatever tastes good? Isn’t that just high-sugar, high-fat food anyway?

They dragged the zombie corpses off their vehicle, righted the motorcycle, and began moving the supplies.

Since Lu Yuan’s injuries hadn’t fully healed, she tried to do most of the heavy lifting, shuttling back and forth without a break.

Lu Yuan watched her effortlessly hoist a sack of rice, a look of surprise on his face.

“I didn’t realize you were so strong.”

Zhou An’an scoffed. “Back at my old job, potato crates weighed fifty jin each. I always moved them myself.”

And after moving them, I had to peel them and fry them, she thought. What a beast-of-burden life that was.

Lu Yuan hoisted a sack of rice himself and walked alongside her, chatting.

“Didn’t you go to college? What did you major in?”

Zhou An’an seemed a bit embarrassed to answer, mumbling the word into her collar: “Finance.”

Lu Yuan, predictably, misheard. “Chicken strips? You studied to be a chef?”

Frying potatoes after graduating with a finance degree versus frying potatoes after graduating from culinary school… The latter is definitely less embarrassing, Zhou An’an thought.

She just hummed in response.

Lu Yuan sighed wistfully. “Resources before Doomsday were so abundant. Even chefs had to go to college to learn their trade.”

She laughed dryly, feeling a pang of guilt.

“Well, now you can finally live your dream,” he continued. “With all these ingredients, you can cook whatever you want for every meal.”

Zhou An’an pouted. “My dream isn’t to cook.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s…” She trailed off, suddenly realizing she was a person without a dream.

Or rather, she hadn’t thought about the word “dream” since middle school.

Her job had been grueling, but she’d just silently endured it, lacking the motivation or desire to change anything.

She had simply existed, numbly.

My dream… my dream…

“I want to open a flower shop somewhere facing the sea,” she heard herself say.

Lu Yuan finished stacking the sack of rice and tapped her on the head.

“Snap out of it. If you open a flower shop now, you’ll just get eaten alive by the flowers.”

Still lost in her reverie, Zhou An’an’s spirits instantly deflated. “You were the one who insisted I tell you! I did. So what’s your dream?”

Lu Yuan glanced at the bus, now gradually filling with food supplies. “I don’t have a dream. I’m already living in paradise.”

Zhou An’an’s mouth opened, but she didn’t know what to say.

Lu Yuan turned around. “Let’s go. We should finish up before dark.”

They resumed their work. The supplies already on the bus, combined with what they’d just moved, packed the rear compartment tightly. Even the space under their beds was crammed with carrots.

As Zhou An’an stacked the items, she carefully placed the more perishable ones on the outside and the less perishable ones on the inside, so they could eat them in order.

They also found a large stash of canned goods: pineapple, yellow peaches, corn, and oil-packed tuna.

The cans had a long shelf life—a full year—so they loaded them all onto the bus to be eaten slowly over time.

By the time they were nearly finished, the sky was growing dark.

As they prepared to leave, Zhou An’an glanced at a nearby factory building and suddenly stopped.

“What’s wrong?” Lu Yuan asked, turning back.

“Do you know what a real treasure trove looks like?” she asked mysteriously.

“Hmm?”

Zhou An’an pointed to the factory building not far away. The sign above the entrance clearly read: X-Feng Transfer Warehouse.

It was a courier transfer warehouse!

Now we can unbox mystery packages to our hearts’ content!

Lu Yuan hadn’t planned on staying long, but the thought of a warehouse filled with pre-apocalypse online shopping packages—where they could take anything they wanted—was too tempting to resist.

The warehouse was right next door, separated only by an eight-meter-wide road and countless zombies.

Lu Yuan was about to repeat his previous tactic, but Zhou An’an stopped him.

She couldn’t bear to go through that worry a second time.

“Let’s just drive the bus over,” she said. “The zombies outside the warehouse aren’t that dense. It’ll be fine.”

Lu Yuan looked at her determined expression, understanding her unspoken concern. A warmth spread through his chest, and he nodded.

“Alright. We’ll do it your way.”

They returned to the bus and turned it around.

The zombies that had scattered now heard the engine and immediately swarmed back.

The bus was sturdy enough to withstand collisions, but with zombies pressing in from all sides, moving forward or backward became incredibly difficult.

The short journey took them nearly half an hour before they finally reached the courier warehouse.

Using their established method, they parked the bus lengthwise against the main gate, blocking the zombies outside.

Surrounded by zombies, Zhou An’an had to repeatedly ram the bus forward and backward, crushing them to clear enough space to park. By the time she finally maneuvered the vehicle into place, its body and windows were smeared with zombie flesh and blood, and the ground was a sticky, viscous mess.

Zhou An’an stood up, feeling her stomach churn at the sight.

Lu Yuan handed her a carton of lemon tea they’d found at the fast-food processing plant. She downed it in one gulp, the drink’s refreshing sweetness finally suppressing the wave of nausea.

“Will every day be like this from now on?”

The zombies had been human, after all. She felt her mind straining under the pressure.

Lu Yuan replied, “You’re overthinking it. Zombies aren’t an infinite, renewable resource. In three to five years, you’ll have trouble finding any to kill even if you want to.”

Zhou An’an looked puzzled. “But the social media posts you sent from the future showed there were still tons of zombies over a hundred years later.”

Lu Yuan’s eyes darkened slightly. “That was a man-made disaster, not a natural one.”

A name suddenly came to her. “Was it that wanted criminal, Chu Feng? He led a zombie horde to a shelter and got a lot of people killed, right?”

Lu Yuan fell silent and shot her a glare.

Zhou An’an touched her cheek. “Did I say something wrong?”

That’s what Gu Zhao told me, she thought. He even said the Doomsday Players are all hunting Chu Feng and will capture him on sight.

“I’m not talking to you about this. Get out of the bus.”

Without another word, Lu Yuan opened the door and stepped out. Zhou An’an was utterly speechless.

I was talking about Chu Feng, not him! What’s he so angry about?

Now sullen herself, she followed him out of the bus. But she quickly had no time to dwell on it.

Since they hadn’t lured the zombies away beforehand, more than a dozen remained inside the courier warehouse. The moment the bus door opened, they charged.

Zhou An’an immediately raised her shotgun, but after taking down one zombie, she was out of ammo.

She scrambled back to grab her pickaxe. When she returned, she saw Lu Yuan had already plunged into the zombie horde.

His only weapon was still that short knife. With dusk falling, Zhou An’an couldn’t make out his movements clearly—only the constant flashes of his blade. Within minutes, all the zombies lay on the ground.

“Holy… That’s insane…”

She knew Lu Yuan was skilled, but she’d never imagined he was this good.

Lu Yuan heard her praise but merely scoffed dismissively and continued walking forward.

Just as Zhou An’an was about to follow, a zombie lying on the ground suddenly grabbed her ankle. Caught off guard, she stumbled and fell.

The zombie lunged on top of her, its jaws snapping open to bite.

She quickly blocked it with her pickaxe.

A sharp whoosh cut through the air. Lu Yuan had thrown his short knife, its tip sinking with perfect accuracy between the zombie’s eyebrows.

The creature’s body swayed, lost its strength, and collapsed lifelessly on top of Zhou An’an.

She kicked it off with all her might and used a nearby shelf to pull herself up, her heart pounding with lingering fear.

In the apocalypse, you really can’t let your guard down for even a second!

Lu Yuan walked over to retrieve his knife. Zhou An’an couldn’t help but praise him again. “You’re incredible! Are you the strongest person in the Doomsday Shelter? You must be! Taking on so many zombies alone while injured… I’m completely in awe!”

Under the barrage of flattery, the coldness on Lu Yuan’s face rapidly melted away. Their earlier minor disagreement was completely forgotten, and his tone became friendly.

“It’s just a necessary skill. With enough training, you can be like me.”

“Really?” Zhou An’an had no confidence in herself at all.

“This is necessary. Otherwise, you won’t last ten years.”

“…Thank you for the reminder.”

The two of them swept the warehouse, confirming that the doors and windows were shut tight and there were no other zombies. Only then did they relax and approach the mountain of express delivery boxes.

Zhou An’an rubbed her hands together eagerly. She found two utility knives and handed one to Lu Yuan.

“Let’s go! Let’s see who has better luck.”

Lu Yuan casually picked up a box and shook it. “You said we could find anything here?”

“Yep.”

“Guns?”

Zhou An’an was at a loss for words. “Uh… that’s a bit too much to ask. You’d have to try an overseas delivery warehouse for that.”

He curled his lip. “So it’s all just trinkets, then.”

Despite his words, he showed no hesitation, already tearing open the box.

“What’s this?” Lu Yuan pulled out a puffy, pink little pouch.

Zhou An’an glanced at it, and her ears instantly burned.

“H-Hemostatic tablets.”

The name’s different, but the effect is similar enough, she thought. I’m not exactly lying, am I?

“Hemostatic tablets come in packaging like this?”

The writing on it was strange, too.

“This way, the injured person can feel some warmth.”

Zhou An’an felt that ever since she met Lu Yuan, her skin had gotten thicker, and she’d become a much better liar.

She wasn’t sure if that counted as progress.

Lu Yuan nodded, tore open the pouch, took one out, and studied it for a moment. Then he peeled off the thin paper backing and stuck it to the clothes over his waist.

“It’s actually quite good—soft and hygienic,” he commented. “Only a world with abundant resources would bother making something like this.”

Zhou An’an didn’t know what to say anymore, so she just laughed. “Haha, yeah.”

Having found a decent treasure in his very first box, Lu Yuan grew even more interested, his utility knife flying up and down.

Not to be outdone, Zhou An’an turned on her phone’s flashlight and placed it on a nearby shelf to illuminate the dark warehouse. She began her own late-night treasure hunt.

Her first box contained a set of very high-end, expensive face masks. The original owner could no longer enjoy them, and Zhou An’an didn’t have much space for such non-essentials. With a sigh of regret, she pulled out two sheets and tossed the rest aside.

The second box contained a pair of exquisite high heels. Zhou An’an cradled them in her hands, gazing at them reluctantly for several minutes before finally putting them down.

Life is more important than beauty.

If she wore these shoes, they’d get her killed when she needed to run.

The third box held an electric hot pot. She had just found several packets of hot pot base at the bento box processing plant, so she hesitated between keeping it and leaving it. Looking up at Lu Yuan, she asked, “Do you want to eat hot pot?”

Lu Yuan tried to recall scenes from movies. “The kind where you put lots of ingredients into a bubbling, fiery-red broth?”

“Yeah.”

“Yes.”

Okay, keeping it.

As Zhou An’an moved on to the next box, Lu Yuan suddenly tossed something to her. “This is for you.”

She caught it and saw a beautiful little leather handbag.

“It’s gorgeous!” Zhou An’an exclaimed, hugging it to her chest as if she couldn’t bear to part with it. But then she sighed. “It’s beautiful, but I’ll never have a chance to use it.”

The streets were empty now. She couldn’t exactly carry it around every day for the zombies to admire.

But Lu Yuan said, “If you like it, keep it. You’ll find a use for it eventually.”

Since he’d said so, she decided to keep it.

Beaming, Zhou An’an found a large cardboard box and began packing all the items she wanted.

Lu Yuan gave me a bag, so I should give him something in return.

After carefully considering her options, she tossed him a box of once-expensive hair conditioner.

“What’s this?”

“It’s for your beard. It’ll make it dark and shiny.” Given how much he seems to cherish that beard, this gift can’t be wrong, right?

Lu Yuan rolled his eyes and threw it back. “You keep it for your mustache.”

“You’re the one with a mustache!” Zhou An’an covered her mouth in embarrassment, but her curiosity quickly took over. “Aren’t you really fond of that beard? I’ve been wondering—why does a young guy like you insist on having such a big beard? Is it the latest apocalyptic fashion trend?”

Lu Yuan grinned. “That’s right. I’m a trendsetter.”

“So what’s the most popular style for women?” she asked, already imagining herself becoming a doomsday fashion icon.

Lu Yuan replied, “Shaved heads.”

Zhou An’an was speechless for three seconds. “…Screw you!”

He roared with laughter.

The warehouse was packed with so many parcels that they worked until midnight, their hands aching, and still hadn’t finished.

But neither of them suggested leaving. They simply returned to the truck, locked the doors, and slept, ready to continue the next day.

After the apocalypse, Zhou An’an’s tastes had changed.

She no longer bothered with things she used to love, like lipstick, eyeshadow, necklaces, and earrings.

Instead, she kept practical items she’d never cared about before, such as emergency flashlights and compasses.

Lu Yuan’s interests were far more eclectic. He kept everything from a squishy egg stress toy and a portable tea set to plush toys.

He even picked out a shirt covered in large red roses, a green baseball cap, leopard-print non-prescription glasses, and fluorescent blue high-top sneakers—and immediately put them all on.

When he appeared before Zhou An’an in this getup, she felt like her eyes were going blind. At that moment, she finally understood why he was so insistent on keeping his beard—his sense of style was just plain bizarre

Seeing Lu Yuan dress up so enthusiastically, she couldn’t resist secretly stashing away a few pretty dresses and some jewelry.

The biggest haul from this trip had to be the entire box of disposable underwear and socks. She figured she wouldn’t have to wash underwear every day for the next six months.

On the third day, with the bus nearly bursting at the seams, they decided to make one final trip into the warehouse before leaving.

As Zhou An’an was stuffing spicy gluten strips into a box, Lu Yuan, squatting opposite her, suddenly froze. His ears twitched.

“There’s a vehicle outside.”

Zhou An’an quickly stood up. “Are other survivors here for supplies?”

“Let’s go see.”

They moved to the window and saw an SUV parked next to their bus.

The people inside had guns and swiftly cleared the surrounding zombies. Then, one person got out, shot out the bus’s driver-side window, and climbed inside in a few quick movements.

Even Zhou An’an understood what was happening. “They’re trying to steal our bus! Crap, I didn’t take the keys!”

Previously, they were the only living people around, and zombies certainly couldn’t—or wouldn’t—steal a car. So she’d never bothered to take the keys out. The thieves could just hop in and drive off.

Lu Yuan was already sprinting toward the bus door, but the moment his foot hit the step, two bullets flew straight at his head.

He had to retreat to dodge them. In just a few seconds, the thieves had started the bus and driven away.

As soon as the bus moved, zombies surged forward, one after another.

“Get back inside!” Zhou An’an yelled.

He took a few steps back, and the warehouse door slammed shut immediately. Zhou An’an quickly bolted it, then leaned against the door, panting heavily.

The zombies slammed against the door, making her body shudder with each impact.

Fortunately, the warehouse door was thick; they probably couldn’t break it down.

She recalled the thieves’ slick movements and gritted her teeth. “Those bastards! If they wanted a vehicle, why didn’t they find one themselves instead of stealing someone else’s?”

Lu Yuan, however, remained silent, his brow furrowed in deep thought.

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